O YOU who have attained to faith! Do not enter houses other than your own unless you have obtained permission and greeted their inmates. This is [enjoined upon you] for your own good, so that you might bear [your mutual rights] in mind. 27 But if you do not find any one therein, then do not enter them until permission is given to you; and if it is said to you: Go back, then go back; this is purer for you; and Allah is Cognizant of what you do. 28 [On the other hand,] you will incur no sin if you [freely] enter houses not intended for living in but serving a purpose useful to you: but [always remember that] God knows all that you do openly, and all that you would conceal. 29 Tell believing men to lower their gaze and remain chaste. That is purer for them. God is aware of what they do. 30 And say thou unto the believing women that they shall lower their sights and guard their private parts, and shall not disclose their adornment except that which appeareth thereof; and they shall draw their scarves over their bosoms; and shall not disclose their adornment except unto their husbands, or their fathers, or their husbands fathers, or their sons, or their husbands sons, or their brothers, or their brothers sons, or their sisters sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands own, or male followers wanting not in sex desire, or children not acquainted with the privy parts of women; and they shall not strike their feet so that there be known that which they hide of their adornment. And turn penitently unto Allah ye all, O ye believers, haply ye may thrive! 31 And marry such of you as are solitary and the pious of your slaves and maid-servants. If they be poor, Allah will enrich them of His bounty. Allah is of ample means, Aware. 32 Those who do not have the means to marry should keep themselves chaste until God grants them enough out of His bounty. If any of your slaves desire a deed of freedom, write it out for them, if you find any promise in them, and give them some of the wealth God has given you. Do not force your [slave] maids into prostitution, in order to enrich yourself, when they wish to preserve their chastity. Yet if anyone forces them, once they have been forced, God will be forgiving and merciful to them. 33 And indeed We have sent down for you Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.) that make things plain, and the example of those who passed away before you, and an admonition for those who are Al-Muttaqun (the pious - see V. 2:2). 34